Netronix Shows Off a 6″ E-ink eReader Running Android (video)

Charbax is back again with a new video showing gadgets no one else gets to put their hands on.

This time around he caught up with Taiwan-based ereader and tablet maker Netronix, and he brought a camera person with him. The audio quality isn't all that great but this video is worth watching just for the Android based ereader shown at about 1:10.

The ereader has an IR touchscreen and it's running an unknown version of Android on a Freescale i.MX507 CPU. That CPU is one that Freescale developed specifically for E-ink devices and it includes the screen controller chip as an integrated component.

If you ask me this new Netronix ereader bears a striking resemblance to the Crema Shine ereader which launched in South Korea earlier this month. It too ran Android, and at the time I had no info on the manufacturer. Of course, a superficial resemblance means little but Crema had to buy the hardware from someone.

This is the first time that I have heard that Netronix is working with Android on E-ink, much less that they had shipped 100,000 units in the past year. Now I understand why the hardware team behind the Earl back-country E-ink tablet said in July that there were 3 Chinese companies who could make an E-ink Android tablet. Clearly Netronix is one, Onyx is the second, and the third slot is taken up by a company that does not wish to be named.

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Nate Hoffelder is the founder and editor of The Digital Reader:"I've been into reading ebooks since forever, but I only got my first ereader in July 2007. Everything quickly spiraled out of control from there. Before I started this blog in January 2010 I covered ebooks, ebook readers, and digital publishing for about 2 years as a part of MobileRead Forums. It's a great community, and being a member is a joy. But I thought I could make something out of how I covered the news for MobileRead, so I started this blog."